MovieChat Forums > Back to the Future (1985) Discussion > Shouldn't the bartender get annoyed that...

Shouldn't the bartender get annoyed that Marty is ripping pages out of his phonebook?

posted 3 years ago by abigolcwock (517)
10 replies | jump to latest

I don't have a lot of experience with phonebooks, but I'm sure they aren't completely disposable, and certainly not during that time. Marty just removed like a 100 names out of that phonebook and the bartender doesn't seem to care. And before you say he didn't notice, like sure, if that's honestly what you wanna believe, but come on, the guy is clearly staring at him when he rips it (probably hears it at least) and then Marty isn't shown to be sheepish or anything about it as he is holding the page in clear view of the guy in the next shot and is asking him questions concerning names on the page he just ripped.

Both Marty's and the bartender's actions tell me that ripping a page out of a phonebook isn't a big deal, and you can't convince me otherwise as the scene would have been at least slightly different if it were an issue (Marty would've hidden it away immediately and would've been more sly with the ripping part). Thoughts?

[–] Ismailov (173) 3 years ago

If I had to give two possible reasons the bartender didn't care:

A. He may have figured that Marty must have a decent reason for doing it.

B. The bartender's odds of having to call someone from those specific pages are probably not great, especially by the time he gets a new version of the phonebook.

[–] Ziggy (1903) 3 years ago

I kind of thought the same thing.

But, in the 80's anyway, new phone books came out every year, and not much changed. The diner probably still had last year's copy, and he might have been thinking, what are the odds that anything on that page had changed since the year before.

[–] strntz (12773) 3 years ago

Marty ripped the pages out of the 1950's diner's phone book.

Good point about the book not changing much year to year. Back then, people had the same phone number for years or decades and weren't nearly as transient as they are today. Mom still has hers from 1947!! (mom is 97).

[–] mikethemartian (6982) 3 years ago

He probably figured it was the phone company’s problem.

[–] Oblivioid (1549) 3 years ago

It's a classic movie trope to rip pages from a phonebook. There's no other thought that needs put into it.

[–] avortac4 (3768) 3 years ago

What BARTENDER?!

He's not a BARTENDER, he's the owner of a café!

Café is not a bar, for crying out loud.

Phone books used to be very common, so they were 'everywhere' - they were also yearly, quarterly, or semi-yearly productions, where you constantly get a new and updated one. Losing one page that no one would probably need (I mean, what's the likelihood?) of a book you will probably next month get an updated version of, will not be much of a loss.

He -could- have pointed out it's vandalism and demanded restitution, though. His attitude about it is weirdly casual, but if we're going to nitpick THIS movie, there are probably around 187 MUCH MORE important - and interesting - points I'd RATHER discuss than this one.

[–] pioneergrrrl (2412) 3 years ago

phone companies delivered them to everybody as a courtesy of having signed up with them. It was no big deal. he was in the business of selling food not the phones. So what did he care re the phone book.

[–] Redsfan001 (6213) 3 years ago

He was too distracted by Marty's life preserver and beeping watch.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Maybe. I mean, it's one of those things people like to call a flaw but could have an easy explanation. Maybe he hadn't needed to use it for months and didn't much care about it.

[–] hurricane (1964) 3 years ago

I guess it just wouldn't be very interesting to see the Cafe Owner have a big argument with Marty about the ripping the book. It certainly would add nothing to the plot.

You could argue that maybe the Cafe Owner shouldn't be in shot, that way it could be more clearly argued that he didn't see it. But I think they just put that in to make it a bit comic, to make it look like Marty nearly got caught.